George Floyd Killed by Police, Catholic Bishops' President Takes Six Days to Speak; Supreme Court Forbids Workplace Discrimination Vs. LGBTQ People, USCCB Instantly Finds Its Voice

Police kill George Floyd, Archbishop Gomez responds six days later; SCOTUS files a ruling about LGBT people, Gomez responds six hours later. https://t.co/LHMFVHp1Wo

— Dan Cosacchi (@dcosacchi) June 15, 2020

New York Times, "Gay Rights Are Civil Rights":

The vote was 6 to 3. It should have been unanimous.

If I Were a Young Person Seeking a Church Home for Myself, Why Would I EVER Want to Consider a Church in Which….

If I were a young person seeking a church home for myself, why would I EVER want to consider a church in which

Newman Canonized, and Talk of His Love for Ambrose St. John Rocks the World of Macho-Heterosexist Clerics: My Thoughts

1/ It has long been a tactic of homophobes to claim that one cannot identify people in the past as gay when they did not identify themselves that way, even when they spoke or wrote about same-sex relationships in their own lives. This tactic wants to invisibilize gay people.

— 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔻. 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕖𝕪 🌈 (@wdlindsy) October 14, 2019

Jeff Chu on Meeting the Woman Who Fired Him Because He Was Gay: Valuable Twitter Thread for #RiseUpOct8

The US Supreme Court will hear arguments this week on whether LGBTQ people are protected by existing anti-discrimination law. I've been thinking about this topic. On Saturday at #EvolvingFaith19, I came face-to-face with a woman who fired me from a freelance gig because I'm gay.

— Jeff Chu (@jeffchu) October 7, 2019

The Twitter thread Jeff Chu shared yesterday, which begins with the tweet above, is very important to read today, as the Supreme Court hears more arguments about the "right" of people to appeal to religious belief as their basis for discriminating against LGBTQ citizens in the workplace, in schools, in public services, in housing, in the marketplace, etc.

Dominican Priest-Theologian James Alison Receives Affirming Phone Call from Pope: When Will the Call Come for the Rest of Us?

Pope Francis’ call and respect for Alison’s path rights a major injustice inflicted by the Vatican. It should give all Catholics encouragement to follow their consciences and do the work to which God calls them, even if church leaders condemn or exclude. https://t.co/RAMkMOmZiD

— New Ways Ministry (@NewWaysMinistry) September 29, 2019

I am delighted for James Alison's sake. He's a first-rate theologian.

Catholic Bishop of Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, First to Be Investigated Under New Church Guidelines: A Selection of My Commentary on Crookston Diocese Over the Years

This could get interesting. https://t.co/zKizQX0SbR

— Jennifer Haselberger (@jmhaselberger) September 11, 2019

The bishop of the Catholic diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, Michael Hoeppner, is now under canonical investigation for allegedly interfering with civil or canonical investigations of clerical sexual abuse of minors. As Jean Hopfensperger states in the report I have just linked, Hoeppner is the first sitting bishop to be investigated under new Vatican protocols for reviewing and disciplining bishops in such matters.

Wendell Griffen, "Standing with Elaine"

With the permission of my friend Judge (and Reverend) Wendell Griffen, I'd like to share with you a statement he has made recently on his blog The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope. A bit of background: as Wendell's posting notes, in October 1919, hundreds of black men, women, and children were murdered in an event in eastern Arkansas now known as the Elaine Massacre. There are some outstanding historical accounts of what occurred in this massacre — one of the largest race-based massacres in American history. These accounts provide a narrative of what happened to the extent to which historians can piece together what occurred, when so much evidence has been lost or suppressed.

I Refuse to Hate: People of Faith Challenge GOP Racism, or What's Wrong with the U.S. Catholic Bishops?!

Chris Morley comments on Bilgrimage,

Margaret Renkl on Obligation of Catholics to Defend Their LGBTQ Brothers and Sisters — Even Against Archbishops

Margaret Renkl, "How to Defy the Catholic Church: Believers have a spiritual obligation to defend their L.G.B.T.Q. brothers and sisters, even against archbishops":

Despite the archbishop's words [i.e., Archbishop Charles Thompson of Indianapolis addressing his orders to two Catholic schools to fire gay employees], his behavior does look very much like a witch hunt. He has apparently not directed Catholic school officials to fire teachers who practice birth control or divorced teachers who remarry without benefit of a church annulment. In calling for the dismissal of all teachers who fail to exemplify every teaching of the Catholic church, the "categories of people you would need to fire'"would amount to "a huge list," the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and editor at America Magazine, told The Times. Persecuting teachers in same-sex marriages is Archbishop Thompson's specific focus. … 

Catholics today don't hear much about the primacy of an informed conscience because many priests take the position that a conscience at odds with the church is by definition insufficiently informed. But the primacy of an informed conscience belongs as deeply to church tradition as the current brand of pastoral authoritarianism does. It is time for Catholics to remember it again and stand up for their brothers and sisters in same-sex marriages, as Brebeuf Jesuit has done, even if it means defying the teaching of their own imperfect church.

Indianapolis Archbishop Claims Firing of Gay Employees Necessary to Address "Public Situations": My Response

Masha Gessen, "Coming Out, and Rising Up, in the Fifty Years After Stonewall," on the Supreme Court ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986)

Associated Press, "Indiana archbishop defends firing of teacher in gay marriage": 

Archbishop Charles Thompson said during a news conference that he didn't seek out information about the marriages involving the teachers but had to respond to what he called a "public situation" of Catholic school employees not following church doctrine.

Caleb Crain: Gay-Panic Defense Began to Be Challenged When Gay People Were Permitted to Write about Anti-Gay Crimes — Implications for the Catholic Media

A seed of change, however, was finally planted in the late nineteen-fifties, when the gay community began to write about such crimes themselves, making visible the complicity of the judicial system and the press in entrenching homophobia.

~ Caleb Crain, "The Theory That Justified Anti-Gay Crime"  

John Gehring on Why Catholic Bishops Need a Year of Abstinence on Preaching about Sexuality

John Gehring, "Why Catholic bishops need a year of abstinence on preaching about sexuality":

"Indescribable Cruelty": Commentators on the Concentration Camps Now Being Operated by the United States Under Donald Trump

7/ For 10 years, not one migrant child died in U.S. government custody.

Since September, at least 6 kids have died in the custody of DHS or HHS.

How many more kids must die before we end this madness?

— Alvaro Bedoya (@alvarombedoya) June 21, 2019

The firing of gay employees of Catholic institutions is hardly the most horrific thing happening in the world today. There's also this:

WaPo: Indianapolis Diocese Threatens "To Strip Away Catholic Identity" from Schools "That Employ People Who Are Not Heterosexual"

The statement I've underlined from this Washington Post article will be challenged. People will say this is not about punishing schools that hire employees who are not heterosexual. It's about going after gays who don't behave themselves and who publicly dissent from Catholic teaching, they'll maintain.

Frédéric Martel on the Tragedy That Is the Pastoral Career of Joseph Ratzinger — A Tragedy for the Entire Church

From Frédéric Martel, In the Closet of the Vatican, on the tragedy of Joseph Ratzinger's (Benedict XVI's) pastoral career:

Connections: UMC Hardening vs. Queer People to Catholic School Barring Child of Gay Couple to Failure of Utah Bill Outlawing "Conversion" Therapy to "Pro-Life" Administration Caging Children

I offer you today these selections from items I have been reading lately, because — to my way of thinking, and I am hoping you'll agree — there's a common theme here. These stories interlink:

Belmont Abbey, Where I Met Waterloo as a Theologian, Back in News: Two Abbey Priests Who Served at the College Appear in List of Accused Priests — Footnote

An important note about the story I tell today in my blog posting linked below: even as Catholic institutions in the 1990s knew of the growing crisis with priests abusing minors — though lay Catholics were kept in the dark about that crisis — /1https://t.co/0RsfjnM13X

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) February 22, 2019

Belmont Abbey, Where I Met Waterloo as a Theologian, Back in News: Two Abbey Priests Who Served at the College Appear in List of Accused Priests

Readers of this blog who have followed it for any length of time will know the story of how my career as a Catholic theologian and that of my now-husband Steve were destroyed by a Benedictine college in North Carolina, Belmont Abbey, with the active assistance of the diocese of Charlotte. The "About Me" section of Bilgrimage's home page contains a brief biographical statement with links to a number of postings providing details of that story. Please click them if you want further information about this story. A compendium is here.

Celebrating Mary Oliver & Asking: Do We Want to Be the Kind of People Celebrating Mary Oliver, or the Kind Celebrating Karen Pence & John Finnis?

That's the big question, the one the world throws at you each morning, "Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?" 

     ~ Mary Oliver, Long Life (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2004), p. xiv. 

Why Blaming Gay Priests for Catholic Abuse Situation Will Not Help Anything (Plus News about Cardinal Pell, Anti-Gay Hardliner)

As I posted my posting two days ago with an assortment of reports about the sexual abuse of vulnerable people in Christian churches, I had decided that I'd do a follow-up posting featuring some valuable commentary from Jamie Manson about Pope Francis' "worries" about gay priests. In my view, the critique/discussion of comments by top Catholic officials like the ones Francis has made to Father Fernando Prado about homosexuality and gay priests needs to go hand in hand with reports about abuse of vulnerable people in Christian churches. Where a plethora of reports from various churches, including the Catholic church, demonstrates plainly that the vulnerable people being abused by priests and pastors include females…. Demonstrating that the gays-are-the-problem analysis is a red herring if we really want to get to the root of sexual abuse of vulnerable people in faith communities….